«Latvia’s education should be to train knowledgeable, internationally competitive students. Clever and capable youngsters lay the foundation for the country’s economic growth. A motivated and well-paid teacher is the key to achieve this,» – said Latvia’s President Raimonds Vejonis during his meeting with Education Minister Karlis Sadursksis on 8 April.

The president emphasized that education is a priority service for society. Resolution of this painful matter in Latvia has not been sufficient so far. ‘I expect a more active and result-oriented work from the new education minister. It is necessary to resolve the industry’s priorities, including quality of education, improvement of the learning environment and teachers’ pay,’ – said Vejonis, reminding about the Saeima’s order given to the government to develop a solution for the creation of a high-quality general education network.

Vejonis turned the minister’s attention to the fact that tasks required in the industry, including changes and improvements to the financing system, are not to be put off. ‘The situation when Latvia with 5.9% of GDP being diverted to general government expenditures is one of the leaders in Europe in terms of the volume of money per capita, and remains incapable of reaching an agreement in regards to teachers’ pay for years is unacceptable,’ – emphasized the president.

In order to make the use of the education budget more effective, Vejonis asked to tie it to the State President’s request to the government to assess the base budget’s expenses to ensure focused and understandable state budget expenditures, as informed by the State President’s Chancellery.

In the conversation, the president expressed support to the Education and Science Ministry’s work to develop competence-based general education content and its introduction in the country. Nowadays, when technologies and the environment are experiencing rapid global development, it is necessary to significantly improve knowledge, skills and competence. The president and the minister agreed that Latvia requires a quick and successful introduction of new education contents.

At the end of the conversation, the president and the minister agreed on organizing another meeting soon in order to discuss the progress and results in the process of introducing improvements to the country’s education system.

Ref: 102.109.109.8992

Leave a reply

An absurd situation has formed in Latvia, when society is not properly kept informed of voters’ proposed legislative projects and their signing. Certain municipalities do not provide citizens the right to sign them, thereby violating Section 90 of the Criminal Law, says Open Management Partnership in Latvia representative Ivars Redisons.

On Tuesday, 26 September, Latvian government approved the healthcare funding legislative draft, which was developed to establish the general outline for healthcare funding system’s principles and regulate the structure of the state mandatory health insurance.

On Tuesday, 26 September, Latvian Cabinet of Ministers decided to postpone the decision regarding the proposal to provide Latvijas Balzams with a corporate income tax discount worth EUR 4.24 million for the realization of a large investment project.

Latvian Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis decided not to risk stability of his government. Because of that, he decided not to into detail about Latvian President Raimonds Vējoņis’ proposal to stop issuing non-citizen status to newborns in Latvia, which is something the National Alliance objects to.

Responding to the findings by UN observers that Russia is seriously violating human rights in Crimea, a senior Russian diplomat has noted that their conclusions have no legitimacy as the UN monitoring mission only had powers to assess human rights situation in Ukraine.

Following voiced suspicions regarding payment of envelope wages and tax avoidance at Tokyo City public catering company, Latvian State Revenue Service’s Finance Police has commenced a criminal process, as reported by LTV Aizliegtais paņēmiens programme with reference to unofficial information.

Latvian Cabinet of Ministers intends to review Finance Ministry’s prepared legislative draft for amendments to the Law on Taxes and Duties. The legislative draft provides for improving the tax administration process and reducing administrative burden, including costs, for taxpayers.

Road logistics companies in Estonia dissatisfied with higher fuel duties considerably affecting their competitiveness in the region have turned to the Estonian parliament asking to find solutions to the situation.

Pork prices started growing in the second half of last year. The current trend shows that prices will continue growing this year. This means meat product prices may grow 15-20% this year, says meat processing company Forevers chairman Andrejs Ždans.

Altum development finance institution has signed a long-term cooperation agreement with European Investment Fund, which will provide guarantees for businessmen worth EUR 15 million as part of Cosme programme.

It is planned that Latvian port terminals engaged in oil products or dangerous chemical substances will have to introduce evaporation emission control systems starting from 1 January 2022, which is provided by Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry’s developed amendments to the Law on Pollution.

The President of Poland Andrzej Duda has announced and on the same day withdrawn proposals that would give the President a final say in appointing judges, after it became clear that there would be no parliamentary majority in parliament for the move.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, after her Christian democrats won the Bundestag election with their worst result in 70 years, has expressed a wish to regain the support of voters lost to the anti-Islam right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland.

Because of funding deficit, Welfare Ministry offers correcting the size of state benefits for first, second and every following child in a family, Diena wrote with reference to Welfare Minister Jāņis Reirs.

According to a UN human rights reports, Russian authorities in the occupied Crimea have performed serious violations of human rights with forcing its citizenship and prisoner deportation allegedly being among them.

In the two years provided for the completion of the established asylum seeker resettlement project, Latvia has resettled 346 out of 531 asylum seekers, explains Interior Affairs Ministry. This means Latvia will not face sanctions for non-compliance with commitments.

In Estonia, applying for state subsidies for the production of biomethane will open from 2018 and the Baltic country seeks to increase the consumption of the domestically produced and more environmentally friendly fuel.

«Unfortunately, the veto right privilege of countries represented in the UN Security Council is often abused, which results in paralysis of the council’s work,» says Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs.

From the monument to Russian arms inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, unveiled in Moscow last week, an image of a German firearm has been cut after it has been depicted by mistake as a variation of the AK-47 gun.